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Mar 23, 2020 11:34:59 GMT
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Have you had to modify the shell slightly around the back to get the Hornet rear suspension extenders in Needmoretime or do the re-release shells have a little cutout there already? I had a little delivery from the bay of E over the weekend... Bumper, and side bars. They were advertised as 'Vintage' original Grasshopper parts, but according to my friend they are re-release because they have date numbers molded into them. (Although the date does say 1984!) He showed me some of his originals, that had no date on them. So I dunno. But what I do know is that they fit OK, and are better than nothing. Besides, they've clearly been used and sport a fair amount of patina, so they look good to me! I also had a dig around my folks loft and found my original motor from back in the day! It was never soldered because I couldn't solder back then so I would just twist the wires onto the motor! It will be soldered this time around. I also found suspect parts from my Grasshopper on my two Brothers old cars. I thought about re-claiming it all, but I know full well that at some point it's bound to cause arguments, and as it was a long time ago, and I have no actual proof to say they were mine I'm going to let it slide. What I do know is that my youngest Brothers Sand Rover is definately, definately, DEFINATELY running my old Grasshopper wheels as I used the Subaru Brat wheels with the Grasshopper tyres on them! I would've taken them back but they've been painted gold badly, and the tyres have all split and perished so I figured that I'd use the ones of my Galaxy for now. Or atleast, I will do when I've found some suspension for it.
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No the shell is original mk1 one and no mods were made.
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Mar 28, 2020 17:29:10 GMT
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Had a couple more parcels arrive today... A pair of front wishbones, with springs etc, and... A set of wheels with bearings, and nuts. Advertised as for the Tamiya Frog, but I'm thinking more like the Subaru Brat, which works well for me as I had Brat wheels on my Grasshopper originally. Now I just need the rear hub thingys to bolt them onto my back axle. Does anyone know what they're actually called?
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Mar 28, 2020 19:45:09 GMT
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Wow, this takes me back! My dad, my brother and I raced for years - started with a second hand Grasshopper, then a new Hornet, both back in 1983/84. Then we had a Fox, a Kyosho Rocky, various PB Mini Mustangs, Schumacher Cats (XL, XLS, Procat etc) and RC10 models. Although the Rocky was mine I preferred 2WD off road, so I bought an original short wishbone, gold chassis RC10, converted it to later front, then built a black chassis one with the RPM wishbone conversion kits front and rear, Traxxas shocks and lots of titanium. Then I got into on road stuff, raced Pro-10s for a while, and kind of gave up when I got a full size car. About 15 years ago I bought a Kyosho half-eight and raced it for several months until I broke it, struggled to get aftermarket aluminium upgrade parts to work on it and then met my wife, so gave up again!
A great time in my life, gave me a real understanding of how cars work, the confidence to strip down and rebuild things, and a degree of mechanical sympathy!
If anyone is interested, Dudley Radio Car Club do the Brett Davis Memorial meeting every year, vintage cars only and well worth looking at for reliving your youth! Have a look on YouTube for some of the footage - not sure how much there is, but my dad still races and he tells me there's plenty on there!
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1968 Cal Look Beetle - 2007cc motor - 14.45@93mph in full street trim 1970-ish Karmann Beetle cabriolet - project soon to be re-started. 1986 Scirocco - big plans, one day!
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Got the front wishbones all cleaned up and installed with the front springs so that I could mount the Brat wheels and tyres With the exception of the lack of paint on the bodywork, this is pretty much how this looked back in the day. One thing I'm not so sure about though is the offset of the wheels. For some reason I thought I had the deep dish ones on the rear, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do this with these wheels. Am I remembering how it looked wrong, or was there a different set of Tamiya Eight Spokes with the deep dish at the back? Starting to look quite good now I think. Got given some rear hubs by my friend so that I can mount the back wheels, now just need to try and find me a set of rear springs for it.
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Apr 16, 2020 14:59:09 GMT
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I was using a set of rear springs from a Frog originally, and after a look on the bay I couldn't find any that I thought were cheap enough! So I measured my Friends rear springs on his Hornet, and went looking for something similar to the ones from the Frog. These didn't look too dissimilar to what I used back in the day, and so despite finding hundreds of pairs coming from China, I eventually found some from a company in the UK. They were a couple of quid more, but I ordered them anyway. Of course, when they arrived the little package had the customs sticker still stuck to it, and so, despite buying from a UK seller, it came straight from China to me, should've saved myself a couple of quid and cut out the middleman! Anyway, they were a little larger in diameter than I expected, so I had to use the little Hornet chassis extension pieces to mount them, I could probably do with the ones that go on the axle too if I'm honest, but I didn't have any of those. I think it now sits a little bit high at the back, and the springs are far too hard to be of any use off road to be honest, but I guess they're good enough for now.
Coming along slowly, still got a few bits and bobs to find.
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Apr 17, 2020 20:42:45 GMT
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I had a grasshopper as my first RC car in around 1986, it was awesome, very quick once I upgraded from the 380 to the 540 motor in, I too had Brat wheels like yours above and I used a baja beetle bodyshell on the chassis, I modded the front suspension to be similar to what they do at Ampro now.
would dearly love another, but I would want to operate it alone and theres nowhere big and flat enough to run one near here without people getting all nosey or risk assessy about it, back in the day not many companies worked at the weekend especially a sunday so there was always somewhere to go.
eventually I upgraded to a Boomerang, but I didnt rate it that much so flogged it on and carried on modding my grasser.
real cars took over by then, couldnt afford to do both!
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Apr 17, 2020 22:06:20 GMT
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I don't suppose you've got any photos, or details of your front suspension mods do you rapidyellow ?
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Apr 18, 2020 17:54:20 GMT
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no sorry
it was on the original swing arms, I used the grasshopper front body mount screws to screw on a metal plate that angled upwards and outwards, to which I mounted a set of spring/shocks that were like the ones on the back of a hornet, I will have to draw a diagram as its hard to explain, they were oil filled shocks and the front end was not bouncy at all.
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No grasshopper is the one you have. The one on the flat base was for the brat/ranger.. That looks very like the one in my Tamiya Hornet although my one has an orange race suit 😁
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